Photo by Virginia Tatro/"Dakota," a dog living near Texas Road, looks at the remnants of a driveway washed out by Monday's flood.

PULASKI COUNTY, Mo. (June 15, 2009) — Pulaski County Commissioners cut short today’s meeting after Eastern District Commissioner Bill Farnham left to deal with a flood emergency on Texas Road and the other commissioners agreed about an hour later that they needed to review flood damage as well.

Farnham received multiple reports during the meeting that major damage had happened on Texas Road in an area where the Pulaski County Sewer District had done extensive work. While initial reports turned out to be wrong that a car had been swept away with a person inside, he received a request from Waynesville firefighters to send a road grader to rescue a person trapped inside her home by rising waters.

Farnham told his road crews to gather detailed photographic and other evidence to document the road problems.

“You got a camera down there? Take pictures. It’s time we sue the piss out of the sewer district,” Farnham said. “There’s a house that’s got water in it and vehicles flooded all over the place down there.”

After Farnham left the commission meeting, Western District Commissioner Ricky Zweerink said his district had been badly hit as well. Former commissioner Dennis Thornsberry called to report major damage in the Tavern Creek area north of Crocker; Zweerink said he was already aware of many roads that were in such poor condition that they were passable only with four-wheel-drive vehicles.

“There’ll be many, many, many more,” Zweerink said.

“I called up to Richland and said, ‘If anyone catches anyone doing a rain dance, then shoot them,’” said Presiding Commissioner Bill Ransdall.

Waynesville Rural Fire Chief Doug Yurecko confirmed that Texas Road has become a major problem, but said to his knowledge, no cars were swept away by the raging flood waters.

“Do not drive through standing water; turn around, don’t drown,” Yurecko said. “We did expect to find a car in the water with someone in it, but that wasn’t the case … Texas Road was very impassable. We took a local contractor’s backhoe to get down there and we had trouble, so we requested a county road grader to get down there.”